


Of Archives and Museums

by Lampshadez



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 01:02:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7664191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lampshadez/pseuds/Lampshadez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set a few years in the future, Dolls wants Waverly to archive a lot of her early research, which is most of the research she did on the revenants.  Waverly is a bit hesitant (to say the least) to put so much of her hard work in a locker in the Purgatory Municipal Building basement.  Wynonna has an idea, and enlists Nicole's help.  So much fluff and friendship, you guys.  So much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Archives and Museums

“Alright, good meeting,” Dolls said.  “You know your jobs, get to them.”

“Encouraging as always, boss,” Wynonna said, opening the files that Dolls had given her earlier in the meeting, forming her workload for the week.

“I’ve got to get going to my shift,” Nicole said, referring to her continued work with the police station.  “I’ll stop in again tonight.”

Dolls nodded, which was about as much as a goodbye as anyone got from him.

“I’ll see you for lunch?” Waverly asked.

“Of course,” Nicole grinned, heading out.

Waverly started to gather her things.  She had open cases, too, though not as much as Wynonna.  Wynonna worked at Black Badge full time, and Waverly didn’t.  Waverly was more of a researcher, doing the background work that Dolls and Wynonna (and Nicole, though she tended to float between working with Waverly and working with Dolls and Wynonna, depending on what they needed) needed to close cases.

So, Waverly was not actually in the Black Badge office all that often.  She had to go to the library, or other parts of the municipal building, or other places with archives to do a lot of her research, and she’d usually bring it all back to Black Badge to compile it and compare it to research she’d already done.  And she’d done a lot of research already.  Boxes full of files largely put together by Waverly lined the walls, several boxes high.

“Hey, Waverly, before you go,” Dolls said.  “A word.”

Waverly stood and went over to him.  “Yeah?”

“We’ve got a research problem,” Dolls said.

Waverly’s face fell.  “Is it not good enough?  I can be even more thorough, I swear-.”

“No,” Dolls laughed.  “No, the problem is not lack of thoroughness.  The problem is that you’re too thorough.”

“I don’t understand,” Waverly said.  “And, is there a reason you didn’t say this during the meeting?”

“You’re going to be in charge of this project, you can have people help or not help as you like,” Dolls said.  “I thought I’d go to you with it first.”

“So what is it exactly?” Waverly asked.  “This project.”

“Your research is impeccable,” Dolls said.  “It’s unbelievably thorough, which is what leads to the problem we’re having – we have too much of it.  I need you to archive it.”

“It is archived,” Waverly said.  “All those boxes are incredibly organized-.”

“The boxes are the problem,” Dolls said.  “This is an office, not a storage space.”

“So, what,” Waverly asked, tone still light.  “You want me to throw it all in the basement?”

“I’ve asked Nedley for space down there, and I had them repurpose an old evidence locker, so we can lock them up.”

“You want me to throw all this research in the basement,” Waverly said, sounding a bit in disbelief.  “Dolls, it’s two and a half decades of work-.”

“And it’s good work,” Dolls said.  “And you and your research are an asset to this team, Earp.  But, it needs to go.  We need the space.”

“Don’t ‘Earp’ me,” Waverly said.  “Dolls-.”

“I get it, Waverly, I do.  You’ve worked hard on this for a really long time,” Dolls said.  “But we’re this close to breaking the curse, and we’ve been investigating more and more cases outside of the curse.  We need to have space for more relevant files in the office.”

“Relevant files?” Waverly breathed, more to herself than to Dolls.

“More relevant files," Dolls corrected.  “As lead researcher, you'll have a key to the locker.  If you need Wynonna or Nicole to help you, you can have one of them on Thursday and the other on Friday, just let me know what you decide.”

“Okay,” Waverly agreed.  She was starting to realize that her initial reaction was maybe a little immature, and it bothered her.  She felt really protective of her work, especially all of her work on the curse, and she didn’t know it would bother her so much to have all that work become less important.  She understood the need to store it all away, she did.  That doesn’t mean it didn’t bother her, though.  “I’ll have it done by Saturday.”

Dolls nodded.  “Thank you.”

Waverly nodded back and gathered her things, headed toward the library.  Wynonna was still in the room, and watched her leave.

**-WE-**

“For once, it’d be nice to be an abandoned building that wasn’t creepy as all hell,” Nicole said, walking through the crime scene with Wynonna.

“Well, you probably wouldn’t have called us if it wasn’t so creepy, Haughtstuff,” Wynonna said.  “What weird shit, exactly, went down that made you call this in to Black Badge?”

“Here,” Nicole said, leading Wynonna to a back room.  “It looked like someone was living here, there was something to sleep on, books, playing cards, that sort of thing.  But no food or water, or evidence of anyone trying to keep themselves alive back here.”

“So you think a revenant hid out here,” Wynonna said, voice dropping a bit so that any deputies near them couldn’t hear.

Nicole nodded.  “Yeah.  They can’t be far.  We think they moved in very recently, they’ve probably only been here a day or two.  The call we got today was about someone seeing someone in here, and calling it in because no one’s ever here.”

“Yeah, because this place is creepy as shit.”

Nicole nodded in agreement.  “Do you know what used to be here?” she asked. “Before it was abandoned.”

“I think, when I was really little,” Wynonna said.  “It was some kind of museum, I think it was for farming or something.  I vaguely remember a display of just rakes along that whole wall.”  She pointed at the wall in question.

“Oh, wow.”

“Oh, shit!” Wynonna exclaimed.  She smacked Nicole on the arm in her excitement.

“Ow, what?”

“We should get Waverly a museum!”

“What?”

“Dolls wants Waverly to archive all her research, especially the revenant stuff,” Wynonna said.  “We’ve been working on non-curse cases, we need room for them.  Waverly is bummed that she has to throw all the research that she spent her entire life on in the basement-.”

“So you want to get her a museum…?” Nicole asked slowly, still not quite sure how all the pieces fit together.

“Yes,” Wynonna said, quickly and confidently.

“Where are you going to find a museum?”

Wynonna put her arms out, gesturing to the building they were in.

“Wynonna, this building’s a wreck,” Nicole said.  “We technically aren’t even supposed to be standing in here without masks on.  You didn’t touch anything, did you?”

“No,” Wynonna said.  “Look, we can clean this place up.  We can give Waverly a place to display her work.”

Nicole was starting to come around, but moreso in a hopeful way than a practical one.  “Her work proving that demons can be resurrected and then re-killed?”

“No, not exactly that,” Wynonna said.  “But does anyone have a complete list of everyone Wyatt Earp killed?”

“Not that I know of…”

“And people flock to this town to see things about Wyatt,” Wynonna said.  “People would come to see it.  Waverly deserves to have her work seen by people who’ll appreciate it.”

“Wynonna, she knows you appreciate it.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Wynonna said.  “She spent her whole life on this.  It deserves better than a gross basement.”

“You’re right,” Nicole admitted.

“Of course I’m right.”

Nicole gave her a look but kept speaking.  “Technically, the town owns the building.  I’ll see what I can do, maybe they’ll want to get it off their hands.”

“I’ll talk to Dolls, see if I can get him to let us do this,” Wynonna said.

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Good,” Wynonna said.  “Alright, I’m gonna go put this revhead down.  Where was he last spotted?”

**-WE-**

“You want to put classified Black Badge files on display?” Dolls asked, giving Wynonna some disbelief side eye as he drove back from the scene.

“Well, when you put it like that…”

“You want to put confidential files that belong to the United States government on display in Purgatory, Alberta?  That’s what you want to do?”

“They are a part of history,” Wynonna said.  “Come on, it’s important to remember the history of places!  Wasn’t that one of Teddy Roosevelt’s big things?”

“As a huge imperialist, no, not really,” Dolls said.  Wynonna groaned.  “But, he was big on national parks.”

“Waverly’s mentioned that he hung out with Wyatt once or twice,” Wynonna said.  “Wouldn’t he like to see a museum for his friend, curated by someone who works for the division he started?”

“There are plenty of museums for Wyatt Earp,” Dolls said.  “And they weren’t friends.  Then went on one hunting trip.”

“Doesn’t prove they’re not friends,” Wynonna grumbled.  “Anyway.  We’re not going to display anything classified.  We haven’t gotten everyone, but we have the most complete account of everyone Wyatt killed in the world.  No one has more information than we do.”

“Yes, because we’re a government agency,” Dolls countered.  “You know how we have more information than everyone else?  We don’t share the stuff we have.”

“What, putting up a few pictures and fun facts about Wyatt’s kills is somehow going to topple American democracy?  Dolls, come on.  Waves has spent her whole life on this, she deserves to have it seen.”

“The point of working for a secret government agency is that you don’t get seen,” Dolls said, tone almost a bit in defeat.

“She didn’t choose this,” Wynonna said.  “She didn’t choose any of this.  Come on, if she didn’t do all this research in the first place, we’d be nowhere near breaking the curse.  We owe her.”

“I sign her checks,” Dolls said, earning a look from Wynonna.  “My bosses are not going to like us drawing attention to ourselves,” he amended.

“It’s not us,” Wynonna said.  “It’s Waverly.  People in town know she’s associated with us but the people coming to visit the museum won’t know.  She’ll just be another very enthusiastic Earper.”

Dolls didn’t look convinced.  He wanted to help, he did.  But he wasn’t sure it was feasible, and he didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.

“Waverly’s been a local authority on Wyatt Earp since she was a kid,” Wynonna said.  “I doubt your bosses will bat an eye at this.”

Dolls gave her a look.

“Okay, they’ll notice, and they’ll get huffy, because they always do,” Wynonna said.  “But this research is Waverly’s.  It’s been hers way before it was ever yours, or the US government’s.  She deserves this.”

Dolls was quiet for a moment.  “Alright,” he said.  “But seriously, this can not be connected to Black Badge at all.  No talk of curses, nothing about revenants, don’t even let Doc hang around there too much.  Nothing suspicious, nothing to draw unusual attention.  Got it?”

“Thank you,” Wynonna said, smiling wide.  “Thank you so much.”

**-WE-**

“I’m saying this exactly once ever, so listen up,” Nicole said, approaching Wynonna in Black Badge after her police shift ended.

Wynonna looked up.  “I’m all ears.”

“You’re a genius.”

Wynonna grinned.  “What was that?  I didn’t hear you.”

“The town was looking to get that building off its hands, and I think I’ve managed to strike a deal,” Nicole said.

“In an afternoon?”

“They really want it off their hands,” Nicole said.  “And it’s a small town.  This was probably the first thing they’ve had in days that wasn’t some kind of rodeo permit.”

Wynonna shrugged in agreement.  “True.  So, what’d they say?”

Nicole saw Dolls walking toward them, and nodded a bit toward him.

“Oh, he’s cool with it,” Wynonna said.  “He also thinks I’m a genius and he’s going to see what he can do with his bosses.  Having a building already will probably only help us.”

“I never said that first part,” Dolls said.  “But yes, having a building will help.  You got the building from today?”

Nicole nodded.  “There’s a lot of paperwork to be done, we have to register officially as a museum and a historical site but an endowment of some sort from the Marshals will really help…”

Dolls inhaled deeply.

“Come on, Wyatt’s the most famous marshal you’ve got,” Nicole said.  “And the only one people up here care about.  People ‘round here will like you a lot more for this.”

“Get me copies of the paperwork, I’ll see what I can do.”

Nicole smiled, victorious.

“Paperwork aside, they’re really open to us taking the building.  If anything, the paperwork is just a formality,” Nicole said.  “They basically told me that we need to officially lease or own the building and be registered as a museum before we can open and have people come and pay admission and see everything, but we can start setting up before all the paperwork’s through.”

“So…” Wynonna led, wanting the shortened version.

“So,” Nicole supplied.  “It’s ours.  No one else has any claim to the building, they want something in there, especially since it’ll distract people from the unknown man hiding out in there.  Did you catch him, by the way?”

Wynonna nodded.  “Sixty-eight revenants down, nine to go.”

Nicole nodded.  “Great.  So, we can start work on the building as soon as we want.”

“Waverly’s going to start archiving on Thursday, right?” Wynonna asked Dolls.  He nodded.  “We can clean it out before then, right?  At least, mostly.  We can move the files to there instead of the basement.”

“And the basement is still available for any confidential files that can’t be displayed,” Dolls said in a bit of a warning tone.

“Right,” Wynonna said.  “So, we have a plan?”

Nicole nodded.  “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Dolls agreed.

“Alright, let’s get started.”

**-WE-**

“Hey,” Waverly said, speaking on the phone to Nicole.  “Sorry I missed you at the office when you got off your shift.  I got caught up at the library.”

“No worries,” Nicole replied.

“Where are you?” Waverly asked.  “I just got home and you’re not here.”

“I’m, uh,” Nicole said.  “Nowhere.”

“You’re nowhere?”

“I got stuck on a call,” Nicole said.  “I’m sorry, baby, I can’t talk right now.”

“Oh, okay,” Waverly said.  “I’ll see you later tonight.”

“I don’t know, Wave,” Nicole said.  “I think I’m going to be here pretty late.  I’ll see you in the morning, though.”

“Okay,” Waverly said, trying to sound okay.  “I’ll see you then.  Love you.”

“Love you!”

**-WE-**

“Hey,” Nicole said, passing Waverly in BBD after getting some work done.  “I’m sorry, I’ve got to work late tonight, too.”

“Really?” Waverly asked, not caring to hide her face falling.

“Yeah,” Nicole said.  “Sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” Waverly said.  “Go save the world and whatever.”

Nicole grinned.  “Thanks.”

“What about you?” Waverly asked, turning to Wynonna.  “Are you free tonight?”

“Nope,” Wynonna said quickly.

“What?” Waverly asked.  “What are you doing tonight?”

“Working,” Wynonna said.

Waverly frowned. “Maybe I should stay late, too, then, if you’re all here.”

“No, don’t,” Wynonna said, quickly.  “I mean, we don’t need you to.  Wait, that’s not better…”  She looked to Nicole for help.

“Wynonna’s behind on paperwork,” Nicole supplied.  “Because of course she is.  She’s staying tonight to catch up.”

Waverly looked at Wynonna.  “Shocking,” she laughed.

“Yeah,” Wynonna said, exchanging a look with Nicole – a look that Waverly totally noticed but didn’t mention.

**-WE-**

“Hey,” Waverly said, approaching Nicole in the Black Badge office the next morning.  “It’s archive day, have you seen all my files?  They’ve been moved.”

“Come with me,” Nicole said.

“You have them?” Waverly asked.  “Nicole, where are they-?”

“Just, come on.”

**-WE-**

“Babe, I’m grateful you’re helping me archive but moving them all the way out here seems excessive,” Waverly said as Nicole drove them to the museum building.  “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

**-WE-**

“Nicole, seriously, what is this?” Waverly asked, walking into the building with Nicole.  She looked around and saw the boxes.  “God, I knew you were up to something.  Are these my files?  What are they doing here?”

Wynonna walked over from a display case she was setting up.  It was empty, they all were.  They wanted to leave the exact design of the museum to Waverly, but they had lots of displays to give her options.

“Welcome, Waves, to Purgatory’s own Wyatt Earp museum,” Wynonna said, gesturing to the room around her.  “The name is a work in progress.”

“The whole thing looks like a work in progress,” Waverly said.  She turned to Nicole.  “Nicole, what is this?”

“You spent your whole life on that research, you’re the best historian of Wyatt Earp in the world.  Your work deserves to be seen,” Nicole said.  She nodded toward the older Earp.  “And it was all Wynonna’s idea.”

Waverly looked over to her sister.  “You did this?  You did all this?”

Wynonna half-nodded, half-shrugged.  “I had help.  I’ve been putting Nicole, Doc, and Dolls to work for the past couple of days.  We made Doc approve the paint and the displays and everything, to make it look authentic as possible.  I think we did pretty well.”

“Wynonna, it looks amazing,” Waverly said, looking around and really getting a good look at the place.  She was familiar with the building; it was in town so everyone had passed it at some point or another.  There were windows in the front, so she’d seen in it before.  It looked nothing like what she remembered it, it was no longer dirty and abandoned and falling apart.  It looked old, but not in a broken way, more like in a way that looked like Wyatt Earp belonged there.

“It’ll look even better once all your research is displayed.”

“You’re going to display my research?” Waverly asked, voice cracking a bit.

“Of course we are,” Wynonna said.  “Haughtstuff’s right, this stuff deserves to be seen.  No one’s ever compiled a more complete history of Wyatt Earp and his career as a Marshal.  No one, Waves.”

“Dolls is okay with this?” Waverly asked, feeling her eyes get teary.  “This all belongs to his department, it’s not mine anymore.  He’s okay with all this being displayed?”

Wynonna nodded.  “Yeah, he’s okay with it, as long as you don’t display anything about resurrected demons but I doubt that’ll be a problem.”

“Yeah, it won’t,” Waverly laughed, walking around, looking at everything.  She could picture it in her head, how she’d organize all her research so that visitors got the best possible experience from it.  “I can’t believe you did all this,” she breathed as she neared Wynonna.

“You’ve done an amazing amount of research,” Wynonna said.  “You’ve spent your life on this.  The world deserves to see your work.  Hell, the whole damn world is lucky to be able to see your work.”

Waverly threw her arms around Wynonna, hugging her tight.  “Thank you,” she said quietly into Wynonna’s shoulder, not able to speak much louder lest she outright cry.  “Thank you, Wynonna.”

“Thank you, baby girl,” Wynonna said.  “Everything we’ve done, every victory we’ve had, it wouldn’t happen without you.”

That did it.  Waverly cried happy, overwhelmed tears into Wynonna’s shoulders, and Wynonna could feel her own eyes get teary (as they always did when Waverly cried).  Waverly was overwhelmed because she hadn’t realized how badly she wanted this.  She spent her whole life on that research and she knew it hurt to put it in the basement, but she couldn’t put her finger exactly on why, and this was it – it was a damn shame to throw all that information in the basement when it could be shared.  When it could make Waverly part of a community of people who thought like her, who researched like her, who asked and answered questions like her.  Waverly was always a bit different than the people around her in how dedicated she was to learning and asking questions and answering questions.  That was appreciated in Black Badge, of course; she filled her role as researcher.  But this museum, this thing set up by Wynonna and Nicole, it _celebrated_ it.  It celebrated Waverly’s lifelong work, it put her in a position to share it and learn more.  It was something she didn’t know she exactly wanted until she had it, and she suddenly couldn’t imagine a future without it.  It felt so right for her, and Wynonna made that happen, and Nicole helped.  And Dolls helped, and Doc helped.

These people, some her actual family and some who had just become it, made this happen for her.

That thought ran through Waverly’s mind and she knew she had to move and pull herself together, or else she’d be crying on Wynonna’s shoulder all morning.

“Alright,” she said, pulling back.  “Let’s get started.”

“Confession,” Wynonna said.  “We moved the boxes here but we were too scared to organize them into anything, because we didn’t want to mess with your system.”

Waverly laughed.  “One of the boxes has an index of all the boxes in it.  Start pulling lids, it should be right on top.  Start over there, we’ll do over here.”

Waverly rejoined Nicole as Wynonna started pulling lids.

“So, you had a hand in this, huh?”

Nicole shrugged.  “It really was all Wynonna’s brilliant idea, but yeah.  I helped.”

“Well, thank you,” Waverly said.  “You’re the best.”

“So I’ve heard,” Nicole smirked, leaning down to kiss Waverly.

**Author's Note:**

> Historian! Waverly owns my ass.


End file.
